"I feel if some kid has sat down and felt I'm important enough to write two pages of words to and take up a lot of his valuable time, then he deserves a few words back, or even a phone call as I have done on a few occasions"
About this Quote
There is a quietly radical idea hiding in Jim Dale's plainspoken decency: fame doesn't cancel the basic obligation to be human. He frames a fan letter not as praise he is owed, but as labor someone has chosen to spend. That small pivot, from "attention as tribute" to "time as gift", is the whole moral engine of the quote. By calling it "valuable time", he refuses the usual celebrity math where the star's minutes are priceless and everyone else's are disposable.
The wording is deliberately modest - "some kid", "two pages", "a few words back" - which keeps the sentiment from sounding like virtue-signaling. It also tells you what kind of relationship he's advocating: not intimacy, not fandom-as-ownership, just reciprocity. Dale isn't promising access as a brand strategy. He's describing a baseline etiquette where acknowledgment matters precisely because it's limited. A reply doesn't equal a friendship; it's a recognition that the person on the other end isn't an abstract "audience", but an individual who risked sincerity.
The subtext is an indictment of the industry norm. He makes the case that responsiveness isn't a PR flourish; it's respect. The mention of "even a phone call" ups the stakes: he has crossed the line from safe, managed distance into direct contact, not for publicity but because sometimes the humane thing is also the simplest. In an era that increasingly monetizes proximity, Dale's stance feels almost old-fashioned - and, because of that, bracingly contemporary.
The wording is deliberately modest - "some kid", "two pages", "a few words back" - which keeps the sentiment from sounding like virtue-signaling. It also tells you what kind of relationship he's advocating: not intimacy, not fandom-as-ownership, just reciprocity. Dale isn't promising access as a brand strategy. He's describing a baseline etiquette where acknowledgment matters precisely because it's limited. A reply doesn't equal a friendship; it's a recognition that the person on the other end isn't an abstract "audience", but an individual who risked sincerity.
The subtext is an indictment of the industry norm. He makes the case that responsiveness isn't a PR flourish; it's respect. The mention of "even a phone call" ups the stakes: he has crossed the line from safe, managed distance into direct contact, not for publicity but because sometimes the humane thing is also the simplest. In an era that increasingly monetizes proximity, Dale's stance feels almost old-fashioned - and, because of that, bracingly contemporary.
Quote Details
| Topic | Kindness |
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